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Wednesday, December 12

I've Been The Apprentice

Apprenticeships have existed since medieval times. In The
Fifth Knight, my medieval thriller, I have a group of apprentice boys forming a
mob to pursue my hero and heroine through the streets of Knaresborough.

Thanks
to reality TV shows, everybody today knows what an apprentice is. Not usually
given to chasing people for reward, but more commonly someone who learns from
their skilled master, who emulates them, who wants to be like them one day.
Apprentices traditionally weren’t paid, or were paid very little, which is
still the case for many modern apprenticeships. It’s a testimony to its
effectiveness as a system that it has still survived. After all, many other
medieval occupations didn’t.

Arming
Squire? Well, most 21st century dwellers don’t wear plate armour on
a regular basis. Probably just as well. The Arming Squire’s job was ok when
putting said armour on. Yes, there could be up to twenty-four separate pieces
of a full suit. Yes, they weighed up to 60 pounds. But the squire was also
responsible for taking it all off again. And then cleaning it. Now, a medieval
knight’s armour fresh from the battlefield will be covered with all manner of
dirt: mud, horse manure, the blood of his enemies. A challenge for the squire,
indeed. But remember there is also the cleaning of the inside of the armour.
Armour that a knight would have been in for many, many hours. The sweat of
battle would have been the easy part. The difficult part related to the fact
that a suit of plate armour didn’t have any means for the knight answer a call
of nature, no matter how loud (and one suspects in the heat of battle, it would
be very loud) that call might be. Happily, the squire would have had his
cleaning materials at his disposal: a scouring paste made of sand or grit, vinegar
and urine.

Leech
Collecting (or at least as it was performed in medieval times) has also become
an extinct occupation. Leeches were central to medieval medicine due to the
practice of blood-letting. Leech gatherers did it the hard way. They would wade
into marshes and wait for the leeches living in there to latch onto their bare
skin. The more they could collect the better. And of course by their very
nature, leech wounds continue to bleed for several hours. There was also a very
high risk of infection.

So
to return to the far less messy subject of apprenticeships. I too have served
an apprenticeship in working to achieve my goal of publication, as I believe
all writers have to in learning their craft. None of us starts off fully formed
and able to produce a competent novel. For me, my apprenticeship was two-fold:
a lot (an awful lot) of practice, and membership of a wonderful organisation
called Romance Writers of America. Now, there’s a lot of other great writers
organisations out there but for me, RWA was the master. A master that insists
on its apprentices getting their craft right, starting with the basics. Every
RWA chapter runs classes, hosts contests. A novice writer thinks ‘Great, I’ll
enter a contest, get my work in front of an editor or an agent in the final
round. Shouldn’t be too hard.’ But oh, those score sheets. Section after
section. Grammar. Spelling. Punctuation. Formatting. Character Development.
Character Goals, Motivations. Conflict. Plot. Pacing. Relationships. And for
specialist sub-genres, like historical romance, there’s accuracy, time and
place. And so on and so on.

Yes,
I entered a contest. Or several. Guess what? I didn’t final. I didn’t have most
of the above to a high enough standard. It would have been easy to have
rejected those scores and helpful, constructive comments provided by those
anonymous RWA judges. But they were right. My writing wasn’t good enough. Plain
and simple. And what those judges were doing, being the journeymen (or more
correctly, women) to my apprentice. I, like so many novice writers, was
thinking I could carve a replica of Saint Paul’s Cathedral or the Eiffel Tower,
when the truth was I couldn’t even hold a plane the right way up. My writing
was still a regular block of wood: there, but completely without form or shape.

Instead
of rejecting those judges opinions, I took them on board. Took on-line classes
with RWA. Read Romance Writers Report every month, with all its articles on
every aspect of writing and getting published. I got critique partners through
RWA. And I wrote and wrote and wrote.

I
got better. Slowly. There were hiccups along the way, like the critique partner
who had a venomous dislike of the word ‘was’ and would return any pages
immediately that contained it. She didn’t last long. Neither did the writer who
had her heroine armed to the teeth before she left her house every morning
(this was a contemporary romance), and who like to frequent a bar that ‘smelled
of socks and vomit.’ That was usually the prelude to brutal hand-to-hand, or
knife-to-guts combat. Interesting stuff, but perhaps not even romantic
elements.

In
time, I graduated to becoming a contest judge myself. This was a huge privilege
and I tried to provide the helpful (but honest) feedback I had received. There
was also the unforgettable incident of what I will only refer to as the Saga of
the Necrophilia Entry. I will say no more, except to say necrophilia is NOT a
sub-genre of romance.

Finalling
in my first contest was a huge motivator. Unfortunately, the final round judge
was an editor, who far from providing any encouragement, dismissed my entry as
‘generic’ (fair enough), before seizing on the use of the word ‘nightcap’, as
in drink. She declared, ‘Nobody has used that word in this country since Carey
Grant, and he’s been dead a long time.’ Eh? I regret to say that her feedback
has left me with a sort of limited Tourette’s. Today, whenever I’m watching a modern
movie or TV and someone says That Word, my reaction is swift and immediate.
‘SEE? Nightcap! They said it! SEE?’ Trouble is, I don’t even need someone else
sat in the room with me to hear me say it. Emotional scarring aside, contest
finals and final round feedback were invaluable. The wins added to my
credentials and the editor and agent feedback helped so much.

Those
blocks of wood that were my early attempts at novel writing gradually took
shape. I worked on them until they fit to be put up for sale, and somebody
liked the look of one of them enough to buy it.

Am I
still an apprentice? Probably not. Is there still a ton I have to learn?
Definitely, which is why I’m still a proud member of RWA. And thankful every
day that I don’t have to clean out armour or harvest leeches.

Note: The Fifth Knight can be found on
Kindle Serials at The Fifth Knight. At this time, only
US customers can purchase the serialized format. The book will be released in
complete format by Thomas & Mercer in 2013.

Your journey has a familiar plot. One statistic purports that typically it takes an author 8 books or 8 years of writing books before she's published. Good thing I didn't know that stat when I started...it's a long slog...and getting published is another beginning! Rolynn

Sir Benedict Palmer returns to Germany on November 1 2016!

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About Me

E.M. Powell’s medieval thrillers THE FIFTH KNIGHT and THE BLOOD OF THE FIFTH KNIGHT have been #1 Amazon bestsellers and a Bild bestseller in Germany. Book #3 in the series, THE LORD OF IRELAND, was published by Thomas & Mercer on April 5 2016. Born and raised in the Republic of Ireland into the family of Michael Collins (the legendary revolutionary and founder of the Irish Free State), she now lives in northwest England with her husband, daughter and a Facebook-friendly dog. She is also a contributing editor to International Thriller Writers The Big Thrill magazine, blogs for English Historical Fiction Authors, reviews fiction & non-fiction for the Historical Novel Society and is part of the HNS Social Media Team. Find out more by visiting www.empowell.com.